Their children couldn’t use the internet, even if they had schoolwork to do. You can only imagine how difficult it was. This is why some of them chose to go back home; to free their families from this madness. It makes you feel guilty of torturing your own family. Of course it will drive you mad, being locked up for 18 or 20 hours a day. Sometimes the wife wants to do her own things at home without her husband inside all the time.

Al-Istiqamah: With the brothers who have absconded, do you blame them to taking such a drastic course of action?

Mouloud: I blame the system that makes these people do such a desperate thing. I think the government wants to push people to escape so then they can justify more rigid anti-terror laws.

Al-Istiqamah: Cerie Bullivant was acquitted by a jury of. However, within hours the Home Secretary put an even more restrictive control order on him. What do you make of that?

Mouloud: Yes, as a punishment for running away. With me, my case was being reviewed, so I had some hope that it would all end one day by winning my case or being deported. With some of these brothers, it is an endless nightmare. You get crushed very rapidly under control orders, even though the conditions whilst on bail are stricter. So people get desperate and abscond. After they have run away, maybe they realise this is a stupid thing to do, so they hand themselves back to the authorities.

Al-Istiqamah: Is your faith stronger now, since your arrests, imprisonment and life under a control order?

Mouloud: Well, when I was first arrested, I was just a regular Muslim who happened to pray. I wasn’t that committed to Islam. When I got to prison I became much more committed as I turned to Allah – there’s no one else you could turn to. I began to ask for forgiveness, pray for my freedom, pray for everything really, as we do in Islam as a Muslim. Once I was released and then re-arrested, I began to question why I was being put through this again. It’s just shaytan (Satan) putting these thoughts in your mind. In Long Lartin we would help each other to get through this trial. I am much stronger in my faith than I used to be, alhamdulillaah.

Al-Istiqamah: As a Muslim, do you believe that the ‘War on Terror’ is a War on Islam?

Mouloud: Yes, I would say that. I don’t think they would target communities that are Jewish or Christian. But I really don’t know what the definition of a ‘terrorist’ is. They are still debating what this term means. I feel that I was targeted because I am a Muslim. Muslims who care about others, who support others, they are the ones targeted for arrest.

Al-Istiqamah: Did you witness abuse of the Qur’an in prison?

Mouloud: There was a Kenyan brother who was held without charge in Belmarsh and he was abused by the officers after returning from a court appearance.

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